Alaska Cruise Day 7

Saturday, August 5, 2006

Today is the last full day of the cruise, and it’s a cruising day, so we just slept in until 10 or so when we got up in time to get ready and go to the “disembarkation talk” given by activities director Eric at 11. The rest of the day just floated by. Mostly we sat on the balcony watching the scenery, packed up, ate, and worked out. We saw quite a bit of wildlife today. We were eating lunch in the buffet when Nicole, Conrad, and Lana joined us. Nicole spotted some dolphins and we all watched those until they went away. While we stood there talking, I spotted a humpback whale. We all got a pretty good view of it, we even saw the underside of its tail, which was huge. We waited for it to come up again, but we were sailing into a fog bank and soon we weren’t able to see much of anything at all. Later on, while sitting on our balcony, Mike and I saw Orcas. Quite a few, mostly in packs. So now, we’ve seen at least glimpses of all the animals I was hoping for. Well, except otters, but I’ve seen those before.

We ended the day with the last of the two formal dinners. The food was ok, but it seemed to have declined as the trip went on. What was funny though, was that since Mike and I missed the last two dinners due to our shore excursions, everyone was asking us where we’ve been, etc. Even Nester, our waiter (Nestor Molina) commented on our absence. We had lobster for the entrée, and it was ok, but slightly overdone.

We had already taken care of the gratuities (the recommended amounts, plus an extra 40 each for Nestor and Meriam, and an extra 10 for the assistant waiter), so we thanked Nestor for the wonderful job he did, and eventually I did the same for Meriam. One interesting thing that she said was “Thank you for being so nice to me.” That seems like an odd thing to say, but I really did make an effort to be friendly with her. I wonder how other people treat the staff.

Since tomorrow is the end of the cruise, we bundled up and sat on the balcony to finish off our wine. The two bottles we brought on turned out to be just right. We took our time and after the last drop was gone, reluctantly went inside to take care of things. We laid out our clothes for tomorrow, packed and labeled our bags and put them outside the door. It seems strange to leave your things in the hall like that, but that’s what they tell you to do. We turned out the lights after midnight.